Lose all your data in one second.

belodion

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This is addressed to all phone and other device users who do not back up their personal data.

Please remember that at any time, you are ONE SECOND away from losing all your personal data. That’s how long it takes to drop a phone and for it to be so damaged as to be beyond repair and the data on it beyond retrieval. Similarly, device failure may occur, with the same consequence.
Guests often post questions here asking us how they can retrieve several years’ worth of photos, or how to access data on which they rely for conducting their business, or how to retrieve many lost Contacts and their email addresses and phone numbers, and other personal data in general, all of which is lost because their phones are - suddenly and without warning - dropped or otherwise accident-damaged, or simply fail. It is sometimes possible, at great expense, for specialists to retrieve data from such phones; but not always, and even if you have the money and are prepared to spend it on such attempts, relying on that as a backup is a mad gamble, and more to the point, unnecessary.

That is why it is A FAIRLY GOOD IDEA to make at least one backup of all your personal data. It costs either nothing, or certainly very much less than expensive and uncertain forensic retrieval methods, and is easy to do.

Should you decide that it MAY just be worth considering, see this Ambassador Guide on the subject:
https://r.tapatalk.com/shareLink?sh...tral.com/showthread.php?t=499341&share_type=t

Of course, you don’t have to make backups, but bear in mind that if you don’t, there is very little that Android Central members can do to help you if you do lose your data. If you decide not to back up, you must be content to remain one second away from losing everything.
 
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B. Diddy

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Very sound advice. Rule of thumb -- don't rely on a mobile device as your sole storage for any important data. This also goes for SD cards, because SD cards are inherently unreliable and can fail or corrupt without warning.
 

chanchan05

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Sometimes I wonder if the reason companies are pushing cloud storage is that they are tired of customers banging their gates about lost data. "Fine. We'll store all your data somewhere you can always retrieve it."
 

Rukbat

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Actually, don't depend on any single backup. Your hard drive can fail, and a cloud account can suffer irretrievable loss. Back up to at least 2 cloud accounts (there are many free ones) and, if you have one, a laptop or desktop. There's no such thing as too many backups.
@belodion - thanks for the thread. Want it moved to Ambassador Guides, Tips & How-To's? Just ask.
 

belodion

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

^ It's not much more than an alert to how easily data can be lost, and at the same time an introduction to your backup guide which actually explains how to do it, so I think it's okay where it is.
 

mustang7757

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Very sound advice. Rule of thumb -- don't rely on a mobile device as your sole storage for any important data. This also goes for SD cards, because SD cards are inherently unreliable and can fail or corrupt without warning.
I agree, been saying that around the forums and made post about it. Need various places to back up things in case something happened.
 

Golfdriver97

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

I have one backup on hand in an external drive, and one on the cloud. My cloud one syncs automatically, so I never worry about that one. It's taking the time to plug in the external drive.
 

Rukbat

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Since I have a Pixel, and get updates every month, so do I - before updating. But I only keep the last one on the phone, the rest are on my PC.
 

Tigrisan

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

I backup to Google 1 (formerly Google Drive) Gcloud, Dropbox as well as using SMSBackup for my texts as well as an SD Card and External drive. Overkill? Maybe. But I've been there and while it was years ago, I learned my lesson. I backup my laptop to four different places as well. All backups, phone or laptop, are also on different schedules so I'll never have a backup that's over a day or two old.
 

blackhawkhot

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re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

A near lightning strike can instantly wipe and fry all memory and chipsets. BOOM, just like that.
Just because it didn't strike you doesn't mean your device will survive the extreme magnetic and capacitive coupling that occurs plus the intense static electric field its self.
I've witnessed a near strike and the energy they can dissipate, amazing to see.

Best practice to keep 2 backups, in separate locates, inside an earth grounded conductive box or safe.
 

DuranArturo

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Re: Lose all your Data in one second! (The dangers of not backing up.)

Everybody knows what to do with the backups, but rarely do they. A man has to lose something to start valuing what he had. After the update, the xiaomi phone stopped loading. Nothing has helped save the data from it. The phone didn't work until after the new firmware. Schedule backups and you can always return to your data without any loss.
 

Kawar

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I back up once a month I find that is a good time frame.

ALSO IF YOU HAVE AN SD CARD HOOK IT TO YOUR COMPUTER BY YOUR PHONE AND MAKE A 1 TO 1 COPY OF YOUR SD CARD IN A FOLDER ON YOUR PHONE THEN YOU KNOW YOUR SD CARD IS SAFE AS WELL.

IF YOUR ON A SAMSUNG OR A HUAWEI THE BACK UP TOOLS ARE RATHER GOOD WHEN THEY WORK.

I ALSO OWN A REDMI 5 PLUS BUT NEVER HAD THE CHANCE TO PLAY WITH BACKING IT UP
 

Mr Bojangles1

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I would like to add too, for at least your main account like Google, make sure you link your phone number to the account, I actually have my main number and also my google voice number linked to it, and also create a backup email that you don't really put out there anywhere. Simple things to do to make sure you have a way to gain access back if anything ever happens.
 

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